Bullying still an issue for schools

Mesa Public Schools officials say they get frequent complaints from parents who believe their children are bullied at school.

But often what parents report is not bullying but just plain, old-fashioned fighting among kids, they say.

It's not clear exactly how many bullying complaints Mesa schools receive a year. But national organizations like the Anti-Defamation League, which has a popular anti-bullying program used in high schools like Mesa's Dobson, estimate that about a third of young people are bullied at school.

The recent surge of bullying through social media, awareness raised by the film "Bully" and news media reports have caused the subject to become a hot topic of conversation.

"People use the term bullying indiscriminately today. Reports of it are up," said Mesa Schools spokeswoman Helen Hollands.

"But bullying is not peer-to-peer conflict," Hollands said. "The difference with bullying is there is a significant difference in perceived power between the bully and the victim."

Parents want bullying to stop

Juellia Crosswhite, a parent, says bullying has hit close to home.

Last month, Crosswhite called Mesa police and Brimhall Junior High School to complain that her daughter, Ileen Garcia, 14, was being bullied by six other girls at the school.

"They whisper things behind her back, they put things in her hair, they kick her chair," Crosswhite said. "I have called the school at least once a month, but they never gave her any help."

But after the complaint, school authorities and the police reviewed a video that showed Garcia wrestling with another girl on the cafeteria floor and hitting the girl's head on the floor.

Both students were suspended and referred to Maricopa County Juvenile Court on misdemeanor disorderly conduct charges, police said.

The district defines bullying as bad behavior against a student that is "severe and persistent," motivated by a student's race, religion, gender, sexual orientation or sexual harassment.

"My advice to parents is to tell their kids not to be in any fights or assaults themselves no matter what is happening around them," said Mesa Police Department spokesman Steve Barry. "That has the potential to get you arrested."

But Crosswhite said her daughter had never been involved in a fight before the one on Brimhall's cafeteria floor.

She said the school should have been more proactive in preventing the conflict and that adults in the cafeteria that day should have broken up the fight quicker.

Garcia said her problems with the other eighth-graders at Brimhall began last school year after she observed the girls bullying another student and stood up for him by walking with him to the principal's office to report the problem.

After that, she said, she also was picked on.

"I am definitely not the only one they are picking on," Garcia said.

The conflict escalated a few days before the fight in the school cafeteria as Garcia and other students traded insults on Facebook.

Crosswhite said her daughter's Facebook page has since been deactivated and she is no longer allowed on any social networking sites.

She asked Brimhall officials to bring together the parents of all students involved in the conflict for a discussion about how to resolve it.

"I don't know the other parents, and I don't have their phone numbers," she said. "They (school officials) told me that a meeting was a good idea, but nothing has happened. Obviously, there is a wrinkle in the system that needs to be ironed out."

Brimhall officials declined to be interviewed, but Hollands said that they have no record that Garcia has been bullied since the seventh grade.

Hollands said the conflict among the students does not fit the school district's definition of bullying because the school has no record of an ongoing conflict.

She said both girls were suspended because both were observed on video in a fight.

Hollands said the district has offered to transfer Garcia to another school, including its online education program at the Mesa Distance Learning Program, but she declined.

Crosswhite says she does not want her daughter in an alternative school.

Teaching students respect

Mesa schools begin teaching students how to respect each other and solve conflicts peacefully as early as kindergarten, said district guidance and counseling director David Shuff.

A program called Steps to Respect, which aims to teach students how to make friends, be assertive and recognize and report bullying, is offered in elementary school.

Starting in seventh grade, students learn about personality differences and conflict resolution as part of the district's "career and college readiness" program.

Shuff said the programs work well for the most part, particularly when one considers the size of the district's high schools and the variety of students that attend them.

"High school campuses these days have in excess of 3,000 students, and most of the students there get it," he said.

Shuff said there are not any more bullies on school campuses now than in the past.

But the impact of a few students' negative behaviors can be magnified in today's world because of the Internet and social networking, he said.

"Bullies have different tools now -- Facebook and social media," he said. "You can have something that escalates at a school because of something that was sent out on the Internet over the weekend."

Hollands added, "Bullying is viewed as a school issue, but it is really not. It's society's issue."

Tips for adults

Here are anti-bullying tips for adults from Stopbullying.gov, a website managed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services:

Don't hesitate to get involved if you observe bullying. Don't assume children or teenagers will be able to work the conflict out by themselves.

Call the police if you observe weapons or hear threats of violence.

Separate the children involved and get everyone's side of the story, including those of witnesses.

Find out the history of the conflict. What is the reason for it and have there been similar conflicts in the past?

It does not matter who started the conflict. Some kids who are bullied may be seen as annoying, but this does not excuse bullying.

Reassure the child who has been bullied that it is not his or her fault.

Follow up by making sure that all involved have support from parents, school officials and, if needed, mental-health counselors.